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	Jah Wobble
	An interview at the Compass Club Part 3
	PB: Your output is prolific. How many albums in the last ten years? JW: Thirty? Something like that. Thirty, maybe more. PB: What do you have in your mind now? JW: I've got ideas for albums tonight. But we've got a couple more ... I've produced and played on this album with this singer from Uzbekistan, called Yulduz - Bilmadim, and that's coming out I think in about a month and a half. It's got Ernest Ranglin on it, the guitarist. It's heavy duty, it's heavy duty. It's a heavy, heavy recording. That's really good. 'Elevator Music' is the new one that's just come out, which is just me in the studio with a guest musician on some of the tracks, sometimes it's just me mucking about, but yeah, we're going to be doing some more ... oh yeah, I'm doing a 5.1, which I've just about finished which is proper sound-surround. I did a soundtrack for a film last year out of France, called Fureur. It's a useless film, just sex and violence, but the music's good. PB: You made an album, didn't you, Solaris, inspired by Tarkovski's film... JW: Exactly. Stanislaw Lem the book, and Tarkovsky the film. Yeah. PB: Can you just briefly give us why? What attracted you to Tarkovsky's approach? JW: The first time I saw that film, the first time... I'd heard about it, I thought it sounded great, and I went to see it. I was about eighteen or nineteen, and I hated it, I fell asleep. I thought it was really boring. I thought it was like watching paint dry. And then I read the book, and really enjoyed the book. And it's very rare that I'll go back to give something a second go, but then I saw the film, and then I saw it. It's just slowing down, it's just slowing down. A bit like Kubrick frames..... his pictures. So they kind of step outside of time. There's a timelessness about it. And I think the whole subject matter of the film, the Lem book as well, was this whole sea of mind. The sea's a metaphor for mind. And the mind throws up lots of thoughts and illusionary aspects...... that just pass. PB: Also he lets his shots breathe, doesn't he, it's not cut, cut, cut. JW: Yeah. Exactly, this is it. It stands. It's great composition. I like Kubrick, and this is something that seems to me generally to be lost now. When they do it, it's done in an imitative kind of way .... it's not from the heart. PB: When you're composing, how do you get your ideas down? I mean my memory's shot, I don't know what yours is like. How do you do it? JW: Yeah, a lot of the time it'll just go. A lot of ideas get lost if there's not a tape-recorder to be honest. But one way I record, I use Yamaha sequencers a lot. I use computers, but I don't like the thing of a mouse. I don't like all that. So I started using Yamaha sequencers, and I've got up to the bigger ones, where you can sample on them. But I'm not mad on sampling, to be honest. I find it kind of ... I'm not crazy about sampling. Because I play like a sampler anyway. PB: Samplers don't necessarily swing do they. JW: Yeah, I'm not mad on samplers. So yeah, I use a sequencer, I've got a multi-track system at home, a digital multi-track, so that's what I do. PB: You use that as a notepad, use the sampler as a notepad? JW: Yeah, I use it as a notepad. Samplers are very much like a notepad. And you can always very quickly imitate what you would be doing on bass. And obviously, with the multi-track now ... this stuff, I like hardware. And it just does what software does. In fact you can do more with software, but I'm not crazy about musical software. I was one of the first to use it, but I'm not mad with a mouse and all that. And Audio Logic, I'm not crazy about those programs. Everyone uses Audio Logic and Pro Tools. They have their use, and they're functional. But it's mad - this 5.1 thing I'm doing, I'm doing it in a mate's studio, and the actual studio is worth a million. It's the desk - top range, it's incredible. Big library, it's beautiful. What a place. But the funny thing is, he lives up near Tottenham football ground, and we were in there, in his home, the other week doing it, and I said, "This is mental. Because we're doing everything we can do in the studio, but we're doing it in your gaff in Tottenham." And he's like, "Yeah, I know." I said, "Do you ever think of selling your studio?" And he said, "Yeah." (laughs). You know ... PB: But it's comfortable isn't it, and the vibe is crucial isn't it? JW: Yeah .... well you can't beat the studio. When you get in there and you get everything up of course, but you can do so much now with the software. So much is a question of software. As simple as that. PB: This interview, we'll do a brief cut-down version of it for Link magazine we've just started, (Yeah), which is helping people get to gigs in this neck of the woods. But we'll also put a transcription on the website. And there's a lot of young people, musicians, who look to this sort of thing. What sort of advice would you have for people who might want to make a career in music, budding young musicians? JW: Just keep on playing. If you want to do it, you'll just do it. Just play, and be true to yourself. It all sounds like platitudes, but certainIy don't take too much notice of the mainstream business side of things. It's very transitory at the moment anyway. God knows what's going to happen. It'll all settle, somehow, some way. So you don't worry. I've got a feeling a lot of stuff's going to be multi-media, and I think this favours the real individual thinkers. Blake was a real multi-media feller, he did his painting, and he also did music, but of course it wasn't recorded. It wasn't possible, but I'm sure he did as much music as he did painting and engraving and stuff, and writing. PB: And engraving, a chemical process and all that ... JW: Exactly, exactly, exactly. He was ahead of the game there. He self-published, no-one knew his stuff, he did it for eternity. So this is ...The technology we've got now is fantastic. So there's a lot ..... There's not so much investment from people, so that's a down thing. Because I was always interested in getting the money to make the next record - that's all that mattered to me. In the end I've been lucky enough of course, and fortunate, so I can fund myself. Which is great, because I don't say "no" to whatever I want to do. (laughs) So that's good, but with the technology now ..... There's more exciting things than downer things, is what I'm struggling to say. Technology now is incredible. Anyone can go out and earn fifteen hundred pounds say, to get some good equipment. Then start using your imagination to make something. To me it comes down to the money. Because anyone can get fifteen hundred pound together, whereas in the past not everyone could get ten thousand pounds together. You can even do a lot now with seven hundred, eight hundred pounds, you really can. You can have these workstations, you can do a lot of stuff on them. You've got effects there ..... you know what I mean? PB: Yes, I do. If you were interviewing yourself, what questions would you ask? JW: Aww ....Do you know what, I don't even really know ... I suppose, "Where does the music come from?" How it all stems from mind. True essence, not intellectual mind ... The main thing is .... you can't think 'God', so you can't think 'music'. You can conceptualise the idea of God as a geezer on a cloud... you know - a creator God or something. You can do that. And you can invent cosmologies and invent theories about music, but music is the weirdest thing. Because it's just this sound, vibration, resonance.... It's vibration and you can ordain physical laws on it, or you can superimpose physical laws ... But it's all quite a mystery actually......... PB: Best of luck in all your endeavours. JW: Same to you, same to you. PB: Thank you for taking the time to .... JW: Absolutely my pleasure!
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